The word “politics” often gets to thinking about long, drawn out campaigns, exhaustive speeches filled with auspicious promises, mudslinging between candidates as they fight to prove why they are more worthy of your vote than their opposition and hope for new city, state or national policy that will make living a bit easier for its citizens. Roughly translated from the Greek politka, which means “affairs of state”, it’s easy to see why these images are one of the first to come to mind when the word politic is used because it is a system of rules or opinions which govern a given organization in order to make operations within it fair and balanced. At least that is the intent anyway. But when it comes to applying this term to hair, Black hair in particular, the standard meaning for the word becomes a bit harder to comprehend.

For a very long time Black hair has been pegged as being political and for almost as long women of color have been trying to define the exact reason why this is so. Many books such as “Hair Matters” by Ingrid Banks have taken the definition to task by looking at the history of Black hair through slavery, antebellum, the straightening revolution and on into the Black Power movement, but only touched on the fringes of what it means to have “political” hair. Is it because of the texture which is so different from the standard by which hair is judged as normative, or the versatility it possesses when it comes to styling? Is it because of what Black hair stands for or because it makes us stand out? As Noliwe M. Rooks states in her book “Hair Raising”:

“Hair in 1976 spoke of racial identity politics as well as bonding between African American women. Its styling could lead to acceptance or rejection from certain groups and social classes, and its styling to provide the possibility of a career.”

Read more HERE.

Healthy Hair Wishes,